Forensic Science

Use of fingerprints for the first time (600s)

600 BCE

Fingerprints first used to determine identity. Arabic merchants would take a debtor's fingerprint and attach it to the bill.

1784 Physical evidence used in criminal case

Apr 13, 1784

First recorded instance of physical matching of evidence leading to a murder conviction (John Toms, England). Evidence was a torn edge of newspaper in a pistol that matched newspaper in his pocket.

1806 Investigating poisoning

Apr 13, 1806

German chemist Valentin Ross developed a method of detecting arsenic in a victim's stomach, thus advancing the investigation of poison deaths.

1836 Chemical testing utilized

Apr 13, 1836

James Marsh, an English chemist, uses chemical processes to determine arsenic as the cause of death in a murder trial.

1901 Investigations into blood markers

Apr 13, 1901

Human blood grouping, ABO, discovered by Karl Landsteiner and adapted for use on bloodstains by Dieter Max Richter.

1912 Guns are unique

Apr 13, 1912

Victor Balthazard realizes that tools used to make gun barrels never leave the same markings, and individual gun barrels leave identifying grooves on each bullet fired through it. He developed several methods of matching bullets to guns via photography.

Crime labs built

Apr 13, 1923

First police crime lab established in Los Angeles.

Lie detection

Apr 13, 1930

Prototype polygraph, which was invented by John Larson in 1921, developed for use in police stations.

2011 Facial sketches matched to photos

Apr 13, 2011

Michigan state university develops software that automatically matches hand-drawn facial sketches to mug shots stored in databases.

4 second dental match

Apr 13, 2011

Japanese researchers develop a dental x-ray matching system. This system can automatically match dental x-rays in a database, and makes a positive match in less than 4 seconds.